T 2.28 Violation of copyright

The use of unlicensed software may constitute a violation of the copyright and entail both civil and criminal consequences.

Authorities and companies which pirated material is used in may be held liable for compensation by the copyright owner within the framework of organisational negligence, regardless of the form of culpability (malice or negligence).

Examples:

• A large number of user interfaces was used by a company without having purchased the required licences. The costs for the required subsequent licensing procedure, as well as the compensation to the copyright owner amounted to a multiple of the licence fees.
• A company installed software the licence key of which is only valid for certain versions. If a new version of this software is installed without checking the licensing conditions, this may have adverse effects on the software's functionality or even entail civil or criminal consequences.
• A company did not release and control the installation of software using a uniform change process. Each department installed the required software independently. Since nobody compared the number of installed instances to the number of purchased licences, the number of purchased licences was partially exceeded, partially fallen below. The former may entail criminal proceedings to be instigated by the software manufacturer against the company. The latter will result in existing resources not being used sensibly.